Karl: 'I never wanted to hurt anybody'

Warriors coach not backing down on 'hit men' stance

Nuggets coach George Karl denied allegations Wednesday that his Nuggets were "hit men" in Denver's Game 5 win Tuesday night against Golden State.

In the aftermath of Warriors coach Mark Jackson accusing the Nuggets of playing "dirty" and putting "hit men" out on guard Stephen Curry, Karl responded by saying, "I know my integrity -- I guarantee you, I never, ever wanted to hurt anybody in basketball, but I do want my team to compete and play hard. ... My basic reaction is -- he's watching a different movie than I'm watching."

The Nuggets rattled Curry, keeping the Warriors guard to 15 points in a 107-100 victory. Denver trails Golden State, 3-2, in the best-of-seven first round series, with Game 6 tonight at Oracle Arena. It's the biggest game of the season for the No. 3-seeded Nuggets and, arguably the biggest game for Karl since the 2009 Western Conference finals against the Lakers.

"Sustaining the defense is probably the No. 1 important thing for me," Karl said. "I don't think we can win the series if we don't get better defensively."

As for Jackson, he wasn't backing down on his "hit men" stance Wednesday, telling reporters in Oakland that Denver's Kenneth Faried took "a stab" at Curry's tender ankle during a first-quarter play. The Warriors guard was running through the lane with 8:28 left in the first quarter when he stumbled next to Faried. The Nuggets power forward was called for a foul. Viewed on replay, it's unclear if it was blatant tripping or not.

Advertisement

Faried denied trying tohurt Curry, who is leading all scorers in the series with a 24.8 point average.

"I thought they were mad about the shoulder, honestly," Faried said Wednesday, implying that his primary contact with Curry on the play was with his right shoulder. "I wasn't going for his ankle at all. I wasn't trying to. I wasn't even thinking about his ankle, honestly. I forgot it was injured. But he walked through, and I was just giving him a bump, like, 'Hey, we're not going to let you have that type of night you've been having.' I was just being physical."

Jackson caught flak Wednesday from the national media, not only for his comments after the game, but for previous comments he made, such as a March 7 interview he did with ESPN in which he was asked how he would've defended Curry when he played. Jackson told ESPN that he was "old school" and would have been extremely aggressive imposing his will against Curry. Karl brought up the March 7 interview on Wednesday, as did Jackson.

"I can live with physical basketball. Taking a stab at Steph Curry's ankle is not physical basketball," Jackson told reporters. "You can hit him -- I was even on tape and asked what would happen if I played against him and he heated up, and I said I'd be physical with him. That's understandable, it's not hypocritical. There's no part of me that said I'd be dirty with him."

Curry said Wednesday he's not accusing the Nuggets of anything and the war of words won't affect his team.

"Nobody's really talking about it in the locker room. We're just approaching Game 6 like normal," he told reporters in Oakland. "You can't get distracted by that. We have a chance to close out the series at home, it's a big opportunity we have to take advantage of. If we come out and make good basketball plays and set the tone early, we should be in good shape and not get caught up in the physicality that's not in line with our game.

After the Nuggets' victory Tuesday night, Karl spoke to the media first, meaning he didn't get to respond to Jackson's allegations until Wednesday.

Speaking more generally about how physical the series has become, Karl said Wednesday, "Every playoff series I've been in, and I've been in a lot of them, as the series goes on, it gets more physical. We don't like each other, we shouldn't like each other, there's pain and anguish to every win and loss. Competitive spirit. I'm just trying to figure out what movie he's watching, because it's not the one I'm watching."

Asked if he takes Jackson's allegations personally, Karl said: "Not when I think it doesn't exist."

Karl then decided to point out that the Warriors have been extremely physical, even dirty at times.

"If there's a scorecard and we're in a boxing fight right now, they're winning the fight," Karl said. "OK, we won a round (here and there), but I'm going to tell you, I'll go to any arbiter now and show the dirty shots -- they're winning."

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story